Unheimliche
by Shelbie's Whatchamacallit
Summary: A re-working of a previous story. More fuzzy-elf, lots of fluff most likely, hopefully a good time for all. Sequel to "The Gaze and the Glance" Oh, and we'll probably go back to the M rating, just to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

_Author's Note: Well, here we go again. Again, a sincere apology to those who preferred the way it was going before, but again, it just wasn't doing it for me. I have high hopes for "Unheimliche" though, as I hope to blend the romance and the action. Probably more romance though, because I feel obligated to make up for all the mean shit the writers do to Kurt sometimes. Like killing him. I still haven't quite come to terms with that. I also have no idea how Julia would deal with such a thing. Probably have a psychotic break. Anyway, that was a moot point, because in my world, Kurt doesn't die. :) Unheimliche, for those of you who aren't interested in Freud is German for 'Uncanny'. I thought it was widely appropriate. :) Even if you're not happy with this version, please don't flame me. :) _

* * *

It started the same as always. Julia knew it was a dream, but somehow that didn't make it seem any less real, or any less terrifying. The dark seemed to twist around her, getting closer, brushing her skin, until it suddenly exploded, tried to consume her, tried to choke her.

Julia came up swinging, her body crackling in its dark energy form, the breath she didn't truly need coming in sharp gasps, and she was nearly blinded by the sunlight outside. Wincing, Julia covered her eyes with her arm, glancing at the tangled sheets around her legs, the pillows thrown to the floor.

_The same dream, and it never gets less freaky. I guess at least this time I didn't punch Kurt in the chin. _Which she had apparently done the third or fourth time she had this same nightmare. It was an unpredictable thing, coming at random times during the night and only sometimes on consecutive days. The flailing, and hitting Kurt on one occasion were the reason she had been sleeping at the bar lately, trying to minimalize the damage she did to her fiance.

She had followed Kurt's advice and tried to think of happy things before she went to sleep -and she had also made sure they cuddled for at least an hour too- she had followed Hank's advice and changed her diet here and there, cutting out random sugars and preservatives, had stopped eating before bed and had even replaced snacks with some of Marcy's super-health smoothies. Nothing changed. Finally, she had talked to the Professor, who, unable to dig into her brain, had simply advised her keep a dream journal so that they could find the cause behind it. She had stopped keeping the journal when she had realized it was the same every time. It was the dark that really worried her; her powers were dark in nature. Did the nightmare have something to do with them? With the weird little quirks that had been popping up lately?

Or maybe the Professor was right and she had some weird traumatic repressed memory that even she herself didn't know about and that was the cause.

_Whatever it is, I just wish I could figure it out so I could get a decent night's sleep. _Julia thought bitterly, pulling her powers back down and returning to her flesh-and-blood state, sliding her legs out of the bed and rubbing her eyes. If the dream had some sort of plot, she might be able to figure out what it was about, but so far it had just been more of that swirly black background.

With a sigh, Julia headed downstairs to the coffee pot which Violet had blessedly left running for her. She had no idea how her friend slept as little as she did and got up as early as she did; late nights at the bar nearly killed Julia, and she rarely got up before noon on nights when she had pulled a late shift. She poured out a cup of Colombian roast, and didn't even manage to jump at the 'bamf' sound that erupted in the quiet kitchen.

Knowing better than to bother looking behind her, Julia looked up, and met Kurt's grinning face.

"_Guten morgen, geliebtes." _

"Morning," Julia returned smiling, only slightly less enthusiastic. Still, her demeanor must have been far enough off for Kurt to notice, because his face quickly became serious.

"Bad dream again?" He asked, frowning slightly.

"Yeah. Not until this morning though, so I got some decent sleep at least." She shrugged, pouring some creamer in her coffee, Kurt following her progress around the kitchen on the ceiling. "Anyway, how'd you know when I got up?" She questioned, finding his timing oddly accurate.

"I didn't." He smiled again, though it seemed a little forced. He clearly wanted to discuss the aforementioned bad dream, but didn't feel like pushing her; probably a good idea until after she had a drink or two of her coffee. "But you veren't in your room, so I figured you vould be getting coffee. You have a pattern. Anyvay, I had a very important question for you."

"Oh? What kind?"

"Red or vhite?" His tail suddenly appeared between their faces, bearing a white and red rose. "Vhich do you prefer?"

She glanced at him and smirked a little. "I was thinking blue."

"Blue?" He scrunched his face up at her.

"Uh-huh. Black and blue." Kurt's scrunching got worse.

"You vant our roses to be the same colors as a bruise? That's so...unromantic _liebling_."

"I think it would be pretty." Julia shrugged. "And no, not like a bruise. Call it strange, but I seem to have grown really fond of the color blue these days." She gave him a sly little smile, which Kurt returned, finally leaving the ceiling to join her on the floor.

"But vhy black? It's a vedding, not a funeral."

"Black is for me, blue is for you. I think it will be very romantic. Not that they even have to be roses, we could do something more...unique." She smiled again, Kurt crossing the kitchen to pull a vase down from a cabinet, filling it with water.

"I can hardly say no to you when smile at me like that." He shook his head, placing the roses in the water. "Nevertheless, these vere for you." He placed the vase in the center of the small table and took the seat across from her.

"Thanks," Julia smiled, and pulled them towards her, inhaling gently. "Maybe lilies?"

"Lilies vould be nice." Kurt agreed, his hand reaching across the table and settling lightly on hers around the vase. "Vill you tell me about the dream?"

Julia sighed, having known that she wouldn't actually be able to distract him by talking about the flowers for their wedding. Although she did really like the idea of blue and black flowers, of course, that would also take a lot of dye to make too. Maybe just for her personal flowers then. "It was the same one again. With the dark and the drowning and stuff. And I've been thinking really hard on some of the stuff the Professor thought could be the cause, but I can't think of any trauma or bad memories relating to the dark or anything. I mean, my childhood was happy. And it would be awfully silly of me to be afraid of the dark, wouldn't it?"

"Ja...vhat else do you think it could be? I don't think it's really normal to have the same dream this many times."

"Probably not. Ugh. I wish telepathy worked on me sometimes. Xavier could just pop in there and fix it then."

"Have you thought...that maybe it has something to do vith your powers?"

"Yeah, I've thought about that. But I don't really know how they'd be connected other than the dark bit. They've never effected my brain...have they? Have I ever acted weird?"

"You mean more so than usual?" Kurt grinned, but when Julia frowned/pouted at him, he just shrugged. "You've always seemed like the same Jyulia to me. Except for vhen you're really, really angry. Then you make me think more of Logan."

Julia ran the fingers of her free hand through her hair, then took another sip of coffee. "I know. Speaking of which, Wolverine's been teaching me to meditate, believe it or not. I didn't even know he did that. But that's not really making any difference either. Anyway, what's your schedule for the day? It's a school day, right?"

"Sort of. The Professor, Scott, and Jean took the students to New York. Apparently not very many of them have seen Broadway before."

"Really? I can't believe you're missing a Broadway show right now, that seems right up your alley." Julia grinned.

Kurt merely shrugged, but he had a sly little smile on his face. "It vasn't Pirates of Penzance, I vill live. Besides, it seemed like a good excuse to get some private time vith my beautiful fiance. Vithout the Professor barging into my brain at random intervals."

"Mm. I like the sound of that. But I only have a couple hours till my appointment with Hank. We're going to try and trace my energy signature again."

"A couple hours is long enough." A puff of smoke carried Kurt to her side of the table, his arms wrapping around her middle, and a second teleport had them upstairs, Julia's coffee and all.

* * *

"Well, ready for round two my dear?" Hank asked, holding an adhesive node out to Julia. She took it and stuck it to her forehead, making a sarcastic face at Hank.

"You just had to design it to stick to my forehead, didn't you? I feel ridiculous wearing this thing."

"Yes, well, sorry for irking your fashion sense." Hank smiled, equally as sassy. "I could have put a probe into your spinal cord?"

"You've made your point." Julia sighed, plopping down in the exam chair. The probe had to be as close to her energy source as possible, and as far as they could tell, that was her central nervous system and brain. Considering how...hectic things had become for Julia shortly after her arrival, Hank's scientific examinations had never made it very far past a preliminary. His latest project was trying to decipher the origins of her energy; he monitored the wavelength she emitted, which had to be known somewhere, since the MRD had been able to generate a represent, and running it through his various sources of information until a match was found. Yesterday had been earthly sources of energy, today was inter-dimensional. Tomorrow would probably energies from different planets.

It wasn't a bad test by any means, not painful or uncomfortable, just boring.

This time she had known to bring a book.

"Any luck with that nightmare?"

Inwardly, Julia sighed. No one could just leave it lie, then again, she supposed that was the nature of an oversized family, it was only natural they would worry when something odd started to happen to one of their own.. Except maybe Scott, he still wasn't her biggest fan.

Knowing this however, Julia embellished a little, she didn't want to worry Hank more than she had to.

"It's been alright. I mean, I haven't punched Kurt in the face again recently."

"You've also been sleeping in town, while he's been staying here."

"Okay, well...we're busy. Kurt's got his X-Men stuff, and I've got work and...yeah. It's just easier." Julia shrugged. To which Hank raised an eyebrow. "I know, I know. It totally sucks. But what else was I supposed to do? The nightmare isn't so bad, but the the thrashing around like I'm an epileptic? I don't enjoy the idea of leaving bruises on him. Not that you can tell, what with the fur and the blue and all." She sighed and gave Hank her best cheerful face. "It's not every night still. I think that at least is a good thing."

"But it's still fairly unpredictable?"

"Yeah. I dunno Hank, maybe it's just a nightmare and we're all making too big a deal out of it. I'll probably stop having it in a few days." She sounded reasonably confident, but she was pretty sure both she and Hank sincerely doubted the dream would just go away at this point. Not that any real solutions had turned up either. In an obvious attempt to cheer her up, Hank changed the subject.

"You're hair looks nice by the way, did you decide to cut it for the wedding?"

Julia smiled, loving a compliment to her hair as much as any girl. Truthfully though, it wasn't a whole lot different, she was just trying a new style. It was still nearly the same length in the front, dipping an inch or two below her shoulder blades, and tapered into a slightly shorter back, just at her shoulders. Kurt had still protested it of course, even when she had assured him he would still have plenty to run his fingers through and had mourned the loss of every inch that had been cut. He had gotten over it eventually, which she suspected had something to do with the fact that any time he tried to convince her to let it grow back out, she kissed him to shut him up.

"Partially for the wedding, yes. My hair was always too messy as long as it was to do much with, I thought it would be way easier to style this way. And partially because I keep getting asked if I'm Psylocke and I got sick of it. Wasn't she Japanese? With like, purple hair or something?"

"Yes. In a manner of speaking." Julia shot Hank a confused look. "Well, she was British when she first joined the team, Captain Britain's twin as a matter of fact. But shortly after that there was a Japanese warrior named Kwannon-"

"Never mind. I get the feeling that story is about to get extremely confusing. Either way, I got a little annoyed being called by the wrong name. It's bad enough having to switch between Eclipse and Julia without having someone else's name thrown in there too."

"Well, your hair still looks lovely." Hank smiled.

"Thanks. I appreciate that." Julia smiled. Hank opened his mouth as though to say something else, but was interrupted by a loud pinging noise from the computer to which her forehead node attached.

"Ah, we finally have a match!" He spun in his chair so quickly he nearly missed his target and did a full circle, but managed to catch himself on the edge of the desk. Julia likewise practically jumped off the exam chair, yanking the sticky little thing off her forehead.

"To who? Or what?" Hank turned the monitor towards Julia, and she found herself faced with what appeared to be a large, billowy black cape, that had no evidence of a person inside it other than the face in the hood. "That's...Cloak, right?" Julia had been studying up on her dossiers in the X-Mansion's database, but still had a hard time putting names to faces on a lot of the active superheroes out there.

"Yes, he's a human mutate, usually stationed in New York with his partner Dagger. His powers stem mostly from the connection of his cloak to the Darkforce dimension. Yours however is a natural connection from your mutation."

"The Darkforce Dimension? So, all this time I've been changing into energy from a whole other dimension?"

"That's what your energy signature says, yes. I suppose it should have been obvious, Cloak absorbs light in much the same way you absorb all projected energy."

"Can't he teleport though? How come I can't teleport?"

"Well, I suspect that's because while his powers grant him access to the Darkforce, yours allow you to bring it into our dimension instead. He is able to open portals, but if my theory isn't wrong, you yourself become a portal instead."

"So other people could use me to teleport?" Julia questioned, wondering if all this time she had possessed some extra ability she didn't even know about.

"No, most likely not. When I say portal, I mean more like a power source. Your X-Rays have always shown a concentration of energy in your brain, so you most likely have a direct conduit of Darkforce energy in there somewhere." Hank reached over and tapped her head lightly.

"So...but what's Darkforce energy like? That doesn't mean it's dangerous, right?"

"No. I don't think so. Not a whole lot is known about the Dimension itself unfortunately, but you're not the first to have a connection to it. It doesn't seem anymore directly harmful than Scott's eyebeams or the dimension Kurt teleports through."

"What about...nightmares?"

"I'm afraid I don't know Julia." Quietly, Julia sighed to herself. It was nice to know there was a known origin to her powers, even if it did have frightening sounding name like 'The Darkforce Dimension' but that didn't give her any definitive answers to her current problems. The nightmare or her weird power spikes. She read the file on Cloak a little closer, trying to glean anything that might help her sort through the weird occurrences the last few weeks. Unfortunately, the information was fairly slim, Cloak was evidently an illusive fellow.

But she would bet she could find Dagger, and Cloak wouldn't be too far away.

* * *

"Kurt?"

In response to Julia's voice out of nowhere, Kurt very nearly fell off his chair, where he had been somewhat-awkwardly situated in to grade papers. His eyes shot towards the door, which Julia stood in front of, her hands raised apologetically.

"Sorry hon."

"It's alright. Vhat do you need _liebling_?"

"Uhm...a favor."

"Of vhat sort?" Kurt titled his head at her, confused by this behavior. It wasn't like her to be hesitant to ask him something, even a favor.

"Can you take me to New York City?"

Kurt's eyes widened. "Right now?"

"I mean, we don't have to go right now, but I...I want to talk to Cloak."

"Cloak?"

"Yeah. Hank says my powers come from the Darkforce, and he's been attached to the Darkforce longer than anyone else that I know of. I think maybe he can answer some questions I have." Julia crossed the room to sit on the edge of the bed, and Kurt noticed now that she wasn't wearing her usual jeans, but what appeared to be something skin-tight and black under her jacket.

"You're vearing the SHIELD suit?"

"Yeah. It's...kinda weird, but I don't think Cloak will talk to me if I go in looking like some civilian with questions. Or one of the X-Men. So I decided to wear this, after I took the SHIELD patch off. And even then, I figured it would be better to be able to use my powers if I need them." She shrugged her shoulders absently. "I just need to know if this nightmare is something to do with my powers, or something to do with me. That's all I need to ask him."

"Did you tell the Professor?"

"Uhm...no. That's why I was hoping we could go tonight." She looked at him apologetically now. "It's not that I don't want help, I am asking you after all, but right now I don't know what kind of answers I'm going to get. And I need to decide how I feel about them before I start getting second opinions and interpretations from everyone else."

Kurt was quiet for a moment, Julia watching him silently, awaiting his answer.

"_Sehr gut,_" He said after a moment, nodding. "If you think you vill learn something, I'll take you to New York."

"Thank you." Julia smiled.

"But no secrets from the others. If ve get answers, you should tell them. Especially the Professor, he's vorried about you, since this Nightmare started."

"Alright. I promise I will. If only so you don't have to feel guilty about helping me sneak around." She cast him a little grin as she rose up from the mattress.

* * *

It seemed like New York got grungier every time Julia came back. Then again, she always seemed to be coming back to the slums somewhere.

As she had suspected, traversing the cities rooftops in her energy form, she had been picking up on various energy signatures when she focused. So far, it had been a matter of checking on the brighter energy hubs, and seeing if they happened to be Dagger. It had been a bit tedious, but since she couldn't recognize an unfamiliar signature based on sight, it was the only option at the moment. She had expected Dagger to stand out a little more, seeing as pure light energy tended to naturally be brighter, but there was all sorts of weird stuff happening in New York these days; she and Kurt had actually gotten a front row seat to one of Electro's schemes being thwarted by Spiderman. Which Kurt had insisted they would be better off not getting involved in.

The latest bright spot was lingering around in church, and Julia felt fairly comfortable saying it was probably definitely Dagger this time, not because she could tell from the light energy, but because not very far away was what looked and felt like a void. She had never seen something like this before, though, she had also never run into another person with powers like her own.

"I'm pretty sure this is them." She informed Kurt, as they took up a position on a roof opposite the Church,

"How can you tell?"

"Bright light and a dark spot. I figure that's pretty specific to their gimmick, right?"

"Ja, suppose so." Kurt nodded, hunkering down on the roof slightly. He was starting to get a little worn out from all the teleporting, so she knew he'd have to rest before they got home. "Vhat do ve do now?"

"My plan was to go talk to them." Julia shrugged, shedding her jacket. She had also taken the sleeves off the SHIELD suit, mostly because with all the changing her arms did these days, gloves or sleeves had become very inconvenient. Even if they were able to change with her, the extra few seconds it always took to mold them to her hand's new shape could be costly in a real fight. Though she sincerely hoped today wouldn't involve a fight if she could help it.

"Just valk in and start asking questions?" Kurt questioned, his eyebrows raised.

"Kinda, yeah. I certainly don't plan to sneak in there and give them reason to suspect me of being less than genuine." She shrugged. "So...I was kinda hoping you would wait here."

"Vhy?" She wasn't sure whether his tone was indignant or upset.

"Because I'm doing this the Eclipse way, not the X-Men way. At least for the first few minutes, until they know this isn't like...an X-Men infiltration."

"Vhy vould ve infiltrate-"

"Look, I know you like to believe the X-Men are saints, but Scott's kind of a jerk sometimes. Authority figures are kinda jerks sometimes. And Cloak and Dagger are vigilantes, totally independent, no teams or anything like that. They don't like authority, and sometimes for good reason. I'll try and convince them you're here unofficially, but if it's the only way they'll talk to me..."

Kurt sighed, and made a show of sitting down on an air conditioning unit with his arms crossed. "Alright, I vill stay. But please be careful. Und come get me if you need me."

"Thank you." Julia crossed the roof to him and tilted Kurt's face up, kissing him lightly. "Thank you for being patient with me Kurt. And being my ride."

"Vell, I think you and I both know that I have a very hard time saying no to you vhen you bribe me vith kisses."

Julia grinned at her fiance and walked to the edge of the roof, taking a page from his book and disappearing in a spark of dark energy, just because it was faster than taking the fire escape stairs.

She jogged across the street quickly, so that no one saw a walking shadow and decided to report it, and pushed open the door to the church. She realized suddenly that it hadn't occurred to her that there may be a priest present in the building, but this thought was quickly forgotten when what appeared to be six daggers of light came flying at her face, arcing down at the last second to lodge in the ground at Julia's feet instead. Well, it seemed she had indeed found the right place.

Julia halted just inside the door, raising her hands and hoping to imply that she didn't intend any harm.

"Not going to lie, that seemed a little uncalled for. Or do you attack everyone who walks through this door?"

"You're not the average person who come walking in though our door." A female voice replied, with almost as much attitude as Julia. Dagger, judging by the white outfit and the slivers of light lodged in her fingers. "Who are you? X-Men? Avengers? SHIELD?"

"None of the above at the moment. I'm just here as me. I'm a mutant, Eclipse, or Julia, whichever you prefer. I only wanted to ask Cloak some questions."

"What sort of questions?" Julia jolted, this voice coming from directly behind her, whipping around to face a figure as dark as her own energy form, albeit much more billowy.

"I want to know about the Darkforce." Cloak made a noise that sounded a bit like a scoff, vanishing from sight and reappearing at Dagger's side now. His hand on her shoulder caused the blonde to lower her weapons. Julia remained as she was, but chose to stay in her dark form, not sure she felt quite comfortable enough to let her guard down yet.

"You share my curse," He said, though Cloak appeared not to be looking at her.

"My powers come from the same place, yes. Whether it's a curse or not...that I don't know. Not yet."

"You will." He turned, as though to fade into the walls again, but didn't. Dagger gave Julia another suspicious look, but didn't seem interested in trying to perforate her anymore, choosing instead to plop down on one of the front pews. Now that Dagger didn't seem to view her as a threat, Cloak appeared more wiling to talk."Ask your questions if you must."

Julia lowered her hands, stepping a little further into the church. "You call it a curse. Why?"

"I would assume then, that you don't feel the hunger."

"Hunger?"

"For light. And life. The Darkforce consumes, for me at least, that is its nature."

Just a tiny bit intimidated by this answer, Julia was quiet for a moment. Hunger had never been the word she attached to her absorption of outside energy, because she had never viewed it as consumption; it had always been a defense mechanism first. It wasn't as though she needed it exactly anyway, she could operate without it, just not for long.

"I absorb energy, but never anything solid."

"Perhaps your connection is different then."

"That's what I've been told so far. Is it...hard to control?"

"For me, yes. You seem slightly more adept at it." Cloak turned to face her again, giving a sort of up and down look.

"Not lately."

"You may be a natural mutant, but that does not mean you're able to bend an entire dimension to your will. If you had control of your powers before, I suspect it was because you were accessing a smaller amount of the Darkforce. Now, it appears you're tapping into a great deal."

_More Darkforce? But my powers haven't actually changed other than being harder to control. Is it natural? Is my mutation still changing, even now? Or maybe the Darkforce is just trying to eat me, since for Cloak it evidently decides it wants to swallow people. Think about it that way, I guess the dream makes sense. Dark trying to kill me and all..._

Still, that might not be the answer. So Julia had one more question to ask.

"What about...nightmares? Has it ever caused nightmares?"

"That all depends on your idea of a nightmare."

"That's awfully cryptic," Julia said, crossing her arms. Honestly, she supposed she should be grateful he had answers as many questions as he had. Cloak didn't have a history of being cooperative unless it was in his and Dagger's best interests, not that she could blame him for that she supposed.

"I will say that if the Darkforce Dimension didn't torment you from the beginning, you're stronger than the average person. After that, whether it's a curse or not is up to you." This time, when Cloak turned away, he really did simply fade through a wall, before Julia could say much of anything in protest. She looked at Dagger, who merely shrugged.

"You should be glad you got that much out of him." The blonde said, rising from her seat. "For what it's worth, it's a symbiotic relationship. The Darkforce Dimension, and whatever lives in it, shouldn't bother you so long as you keep feeding it energy. At least, that's the way it's always worked for us."

"He couldn't have just told me that?" Julia said, disbelief lurking in her voice.

A little smile curled Dagger's lip. "Cloak reads a lot of Shakespeare. He has a flair for the dramatic."

"Ah. I know someone with the same problem. Though his thing is pirates."

* * *

Returning to the rooftop, Julia found Kurt in what appeared to be bit of a doze, his head leaning sleepily on his hand and his eyes closed.

"You alright sweetheart?"

"Fine." His eyes opened and he smiled slightly, though it was a bit hard to see in the dark environment. "Did you find any answers?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure yet. Neither of them could tell me much about the nightmare, though I don't know how truthful I would have been with a stranger in that situation." Julia shrugged and sat next to Kurt, turning off her energy form for the first time in the last half and hour, and glad of it. She was also glad when Kurt's tail hooked around her waist, tugging her the two inches it took to be pressed against his side, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. "Dagger did have an interesting piece of information though."

"Vhat's that?"

"I guess I should be treating my powers like their symbiotic. You know, I get to use them if I feed them sort of thing."

"Like vhen you absorb?"

"Yeah. But if you think about it, I haven't been doing the absorbing thing much lately. I've been using my powers strictly offensively in the Danger Room and stuff, and stopping when I get worn out instead of refueling. Maybe that's why I've been getting...spikier than usual, my powers have been trying to find an outside source."

"Could be. Do you think it vill help the dream?"

"That I don't know. Guess we can find out. Are you going to be okay for the trip back, or should we get a hotel and make up a story to tell the Professor tomorrow?"

"I'll be alright. I'd rather sleep in my own bed then any hotel around _here_."

"Valid point. Whenever you're ready."

Kurt remained still for a few more moments, and then reached an arm over to wrap around her waist, and then they were gone. Julia had gotten fairly used to teleporting, but the sheer number of jumps from New York to Salem Center still made her feel a tad on the disoriented side.

They appeared at the bar, where Kurt usually made a pit-stop so she could grab clothes if they was staying in the Mansion, but rather than continue on his way, Kurt let go of Julia and sat heavily on her bed.

"It's been avhile since I made that trip," He apologized smiling.

"Tired?"

"Ja. A little."

"Only a little? It seems to me that you're much too tired to go back to the Mansion, so I guess I'll just have to keep you here with me for awhile," Julia observed, her tone coy. She took a step toward Kurt and gave him a little nudge so he almost fell backwards, catching himself on his elbows. "Thought so. You wait here, I'll go get you some coffee okay?"

She turned to head toward the door, but before she had even taken a step, Kurt's tail had caught her around the thigh, and his hand had a hold of her wrist, both appendages tugging, and Julia found herself sprawled atop him. She protested this slightly with a mild struggle, more because she didn't want him to think he would win so easily than because she actually wanted to get away.

"I'd rather have you than coffee," Kurt informed, sharp teeth nipping lightly on her earlobe.

"Are you trying to take advantage of me Kurt Wagner?"

"Mm. Perhaps. Is it vorking?" He gave her what she guessed was his best devilish smile.

Julia reached up with the hand he hadn't captured to tap him lightly on the nose. "You're cute." She smiled. "But if you sleep here, I can't promise you won't get punched in the face again."

"I consider it vorth the risk."

"Alright, but you've been warned, blue boy." Julia grinned, but was still hesitant to simply play along as though everything was normal. On her end, that was still not the case. But she had just as hard a time saying no to Kurt as he did to her. Especially when kisses were used to persuade her.

* * *

_Second Author's Note: Yes, Julia got a haircut. Because there are a lot of superheroines and villianesses with long, flowing hair. I wanted Julia to be different. :) But it's still long enough for her hair to do it's crazy shadow power thing, which is one of my favorite of her features. And yes, I tried to cut the explanation of the Darkforce bit down for those of you who have already read about it. And everything will be explained eventually, I promise. :) Also, for a better idea of Julia's new hair, look up Leigh Lezark. :) Or Melaka Fray for an actual comic-like idea. _


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

_Author's Note: You'll have to forgive me for the wait. I'm afraid I had quite a bit of school work that I needed my computer for recently, and so my word processor was slightly neglected (At least insofar as it applies to my personal writing) but I should be getting back on track soon. Please enjoy our latest chapter. :) Oh, and about Scott, I feel like I should point out that I don't exactly hate the guy, he just gets on my nerves. I feel like he never tells anyone the whole truth, that's really what bothers me (and all his righteous indignation {particularly in a graphic novel I own called "Holy War"}) . Anyway, I have to try pretty hard to capture his personality, so forgive me if I bend him to suit my needs. :) And for those of you who have seen the X-Men Anime, yes, I did borrow a concept from it. _

* * *

"Jyulia? Jyulia, vake up."

Wanting desperately to roll over and ignore Kurt, Julia groaned like a woman in pain and pulled the blanket over her head. It was the first decent night of sleep she had gotten this week, couldn't she enjoy it just a little longer?

"You vere supposed to be in the Danger Room five minutes ago _liebling_."

"And let me guess, Scott's been calling the bar phone non-stop for the last ten?"

"Ja, basically. I tried to tell him you veren't feeling vell-"

"No, it's okay, I feel fine. I'll humor him." Julia shoved herself off her pillows and placed her feet on the floor, dragging herself into a standing position and casting around until she found her suit on the foot of the bed, not feeling like digging the X-Men training uniform out of her closet. Besides, the training uniform wasn't outfitted for her powers, crippling her warping ability without running around naked. The hand-to-hand fighting she'd been limited too was all well and good for her fundamental skills, but warping, her claws and blades, that was how she fought in a real situation. Not that Scott wanted to put her into a real situation ever again.

He thought she was still too dangerous, too out of control to be allowed to run a full program, to even actually train with the whole team. Most of the time she was on her own with the X-Men observing, not quite what she'd had in mind when Scott had said she would be training with the team again. Regardless, she would throw all her powers into it today and show him how in control she was. Provided nothing acted up too badly of course.

She wriggled her way into the skin-tight material of the suit and shoved her feet into her boots, not part of the uniform that could travel with her, but shoes weren't as important as clothes.

"Can you give me a lift? Again?"

"But of course." Kurt gave one of his stylized circus bows, and reached over to take a hold of her shoulder and she next found herself in the Danger Room, still knelt over in an odd position in the midst of putting her boots on.

"Well...I meant give me another like, five seconds, but I guess that works," Julia said casting an eye around and finding an ill-tempered Scott staring her down with his arms crossed.

"You do realize these aren't optional training sessions, right? If you're not going to take them seriously-"

"I'm late, it's not like I didn't show up," Julia shot back, straightening, already annoyed. Scott had that effect on her. Really, she didn't understand why his problem with her ran so deeply; what was it about her, the way she behaved, that made him so hard on her? She had made the effort to get along with him, follow his rules, but that had only made him sneer. It wasn't like she was the first one to have turned her back on the X-Men for one reason or another, nor was she the first one to have come here after finding out that the Brotherhood wasn't exactly as pure a cause as it claimed. Although she might have been the first to do so as rapid-fire as she had.

"Where did that come from?" He nodded towards her, and she figured he must mean the suit.

"SHIELD." Scott's mouth flattened at that. Clearly, he was still ticked about the whole SHIELD breaking her out of jail thing.

"Won't even wear the uniform now?" The tone implied something along the lines of: "if the X-Men really mean so little to you, you shouldn't be here" and it only served to make Julia more annoyed, and now a little angry.

"It's not that. The uniform doesn't work with my warping, and, you know, I kinda wanted to fight like I actually have powers today." She could tell by the scowl that crawled its way across Scott's face that she probably should have just let it go.

"You want to do this your way, fine. But we're going to do it my way too."

"Jyulia-" Kurt's voice had a bit of a warning tone to it, as if sensing the imminent explosion of her temper. Not that it held it off of course.

"Oh really?" Julia's voice shot up to a near shout now, and without her really noticing it, she was marching across the floor to Scott.. "And what's your way, huh? Who are you going to throw me up against now? What program? Magneto so you can test my loyalty? Purifiers so you can prove I'm just a murderer? Or maybe you'll throw Kurt in there so I'll let the program beat the crap out of me instead? I'm getting sick and tired of you trying to push me around-"

"You'll fight me."

Scott's simple statement silenced Julia's tirade instantly. She was stunned, unsure of the implications behind it. "Fight you...?"

"Yeah. Me. You want to join us again so badly, prove it. Prove to me you're in control, not the program." Kurt seemed as surprised by this as she was, and looked at her questioningly, but Julia just nodded slightly at Scott.

"Fine. But don't blame me if you get hurt." Her tone was snide, even in her own ears. Scott remained unaffected by her comment, and he glanced at Kurt.

"You may want to back up a little bit."

"You guys can't be serious-" Kurt started, as though expecting someone to start laughing and tell him it was just game, though no one did. His face fell slightly more serious. "I suppose I vill go let Hank know ve'll need the medical lab." He glanced at Julia.

"It'll be fine honey."

"Please don't kill each other." Were Kurt's parting words before he teleported away from what was undoubtedly about to become a battleground.

Her eyes turned to Scott, wondering what he was playing at. His eyebeams were mostly useless against her in her energy -or now she supposed she could go back to calling it her dark- form; he had to know that. So what kind of test was this? Was it really just going to be a drag-'em out brawl until they settled their differences? She decided not to think about it, and let the change wash over her, the familiar embrace of dark energy. Scott's hand shot up to his visor at exactly the same moment Julia's hands lengthened into claws, aimed above her head.

Julia realized a second too late that he didn't intend to aim at her at all, but the room around her. Smart, though she could admit she never would have expected Scott to resort to property damage to get at her. She couldn't absorb solid matter, but that didn't mean she was going to stand there and let it fall on her either. Julia warped across the floor, not planning to hold back in the least. He wanted a fight, and that was exactly what she would give him.

Her claws met empty air, Scott had evidently predicted the move, circling behind her as she struck out at him. Changing tactic immediately, Julia redirected her energy. The first elbow spike had been accidental, but after several days of attempting it, she had managed to recreate it, and could now do so on command. Scott made a surprised noise, unaware of this new skill, as she drove her elbow back at him, but jilted her attack off again, trying to shove her off balance. Julia kept her feet under her, but refrained from making another warp, she didn't want to rely on it too heavily now, she might need her instant transportation later in the fight. Right now, she needed to figure out how to get past Scott's years and years of combat training, and a way to take him down without using her usual tactic of putting an energy blade through his head. For one, she wasn't certain that would work on Scott, considering the source of his eyebeams was probably somewhere in his skull, and for two she wasn't sure she actually wanted to hurt him. Beat him up a little, yes, permanently damage not so much.

Settling on an idea of just wearing him down for now, Julia ran at Scott again and aimed a knee for his mid-section. Scott blocked the knee and met it with his own elbow directly into her throat. Not that it really made a lot of difference in her current form, but it was clear to her now Scott wasn't playing this like a training session. This was a real fight, and he had apparently forgotten she didn't need to breathe in the first place.

She let him hit her and latched onto his arm, claws and all, and with her other hand grabbed hold of his visor and ripped it away, throwing it at the nearest corner. On instinct, Scott's eyes snapped closed, and Julia gave a little inward smirk. He shouldn't have let her get close.

But then, quite to her shock, he opened them again. She had only ever had to absorb Scott's optic blast once, but not at this capacity, not without his visor regulating it. It was worse than the mini-nuke she had absorbed so long ago in Boston. The beam hit her like a solid object, throwing Julia back like she'd been hit by a freight train, her ability to absorb temporarily unable to compensate for the sheer amount of power Scott was throwing into her face. She hit the wall on the opposite side of the room, and even then, Scott didn't close his eyes, didn't back off.

Julia braced herself on the wall, reaching down into her powers and trying to draw more of her own Darkforce energy out. It must have worked, because eventually the beam felt less like it was trying to pound her through the wall and she was able to take a step towards the source. Warping was out of the question, if she moved away from the beam, it was likely to go straight through the wall and take out half the school in the second it would take her to get to Scott and stop it, or him to close his eyes. This was the sort of position Scott had wanted to put her in, a spot where she either had to get tough or give up.

Give up? Yeah right.

Julia ran at Scott, even absorbing most of the force, the beam still tried to push her back, she shoved her way through the red energy, throwing her arm forward when she drew near the source, hoping to hit him in stomach and knock the wind out of him. His hand collided with her face, throwing her backwards off her feet, dropping her to the ground. All after he had closed his eyes to prevent destroying anything.

_Damnit Scott, don't tell me you did that just to get me over here!_ Of course it was probably safe to assume he had. He had taken her warping ability off the table long enough to get in a few punches, knowing she wouldn't allow the school to get destroyed. Or maybe that had been the part of this that was the test.

All Julia knew for sure was that now she was extremely irritated. He threatened to blow something up to test whether _she _was too violent? Furious, Julia swung at Scott, hard, and now that he had closed his eyes, he was blind to the impending impact. What had he expected? That she wouldn't hit him after that? The first punch threw him off her, Julia warping around to his back, and punching again. Let him try that again when she moved around him at something close to the speed of light and almost intangible. Circling again, Julia kicked out, hitting him in the mid-section and knocking the wind out of Scott, grabbing his shoulders when he hunched to protect his mid-section and driving a knee into his chest. She knew this wasn't going to accomplish anything as far as getting back to the X-Men, but the violence felt really, really good. It felt a little too good to stop until Scott had a few bruises to remember her by. She warped around him, threw a few more little punches to keep Scott off-balance until he finally dropped the boxing guard he'd kept up around his face; Julia pulled her fist down and swung up and slightly to the side. The force took Scott off his feet, and he landed hard on his side.

She hadn't noticed the blood until now. She should stop. She was going to hurt him. Anger was still pounding in Julia's ears, but she stamped it down and took a moment to gather what she supposed was her composure.

"What was that Scott?" Julia demanded, stalking to his fallen form and jerking him up by the front of his uniform. "You could have killed somebody! You could have killed _kids_!"

"I could have, but I didn't. See the difference?" Julia's mouth flattened into a line.

"Asshole." She wanted to shake him, slap him, something, and was barely resisting the urge to do so.

"Jules! The hell are you doing?" Logan's voice snapped Julia's eyes to the side, and it was only then that she realized she was three seconds away from putting a curved energy blade sprouting from her forearm through Scott's chest. Her eyes widened. She hadn't made that blade.

She hadn't noticed her arm was changing, hadn't noticed the fact that her left arm was acting out without any sort of urging from her. She hadn't even thought about going that far, so why was her body taking its own initiative? She dropped her grip on Scott, backing away and forcing her arm back to normal. She had never had to force anything back into its natural shape before. Just what the hell was happening to her powers?

Better yet, what the hell was happening to her? Was this some sort of Jean-style Phoenix breakdown? Were her powers getting to be too much for her to control? Or was she just way, way more mentally unstable than she had previously thought?

Panicked, she let go of Scott and sprinted for the door. It wasn't a reasonable reaction, she was perfectly aware, but she couldn't explain. She couldn't explain anything right now, answer any questions. She had no answers to give any of the curious eyes looking over Logan's shoulder. She streaked through them like an ebony lightning bolt and headed straight for the door. She just needed time to gather her thoughts. That was all she needed.

Right?

* * *

Logan wasn't quite sure what to make of what he had just seen, or the fact that Julia had just gone sprinting down the hall like the devil was at her heels. Looked like things were going to start getting crazy again. He hated crazy.

Still, he marched the students who were supposed to be coming down here for Tai Chi back up the hall, deciding it would be an outside class after all, and stalked over to the corner to pick up Scott's visor instead. Jules was smart that way, making sure to have the upper hand. Though he didn't know what she had needed the upper hand for; it had distinctly looked like she was about to put Scott down for good, but, well, things were hardly ever what they looked like around here. Maybe they'd just been settling their differences. Finally.

"What was all that about?" Logan questioned, hunkering down to hand Scott the visor. He had bruises blooming across his face, and one really good one glaring out from under his chin, but Scott was moving fine, so Julia hadn't used her claws on him. Not yet anyway.

"It was a test."

"Yer real fonda doing that to people, aint'cha?"

"This is the first one she's passed in awhile." Scott shrugged, placing the visor back over his eyes. Logan opened his mouth, planning to tell Scott Julia had been about to skewer him, but closed it instead, wondering what test she had passed. And if Scott hadn't noticed, maybe that was for the better. "Where did she go?"

"She left." Logan shrugged, unsure of what else to say on that note. "The hell kinda test were ya giving her?"

"I gave her a choice. I gave her a chance to take me out and end the fight, but it would have taken out half the school. She didn't take the bait though, she made the right decision."

"So...what does that mean?"

"I'm not saying she gets a free pass for the things she did, that will take a lot more work, but it means I can start trusting her again. For now, that will have to do. Because I seriously doubt she'll start trusting me again anytime soon. Or liking me for that matter."

"Ya got that right." Logan muttered under his breath, distracted when Kurt appeared in the doorway, medical bag in hand.

"The fight's over?"

"Yeah. Looks like Jules was winning."

"Vhere did she go?"

Logan shrugged, and pointed vaguely down the left side of the hall. Looking utterly confused, Kurt headed off in the direction of his future wife, muttering something that sounded a bit like: "Oh, for the love of God" in German. Logan turned back to Scott.

"She won't be back on missions yet," Scott said, evidently reading Logan's expression, "But we can start working her into the team again."

Logan just gave little nod. "Keep her with me mosta the time, alright?"

Something about the way Julia had been acting was still bugging him. Something about it didn't feel quite right. If she ever did start going too far again, Logan knew he or Kurt would likely have to be the ones to step in. She couldn't hurt him, his skeleton repelled her powers, and even if they could make it through, his healing factor made it a moot point, and never in a million years would she willingly harm Kurt. And until things started to make sense, they were going to have to keep her in line.

* * *

As a telepath, there was a certain amount of noise Xavier had grown used to. Even when he wasn't listening, thoughts and dreams could easily leak into his head, it was especially true as close-quartered as the school was. Thoughts that weren't specifically for communication were an interesting thing to observe, as much pictures and feelings as they were words. Marcy's mind was a muddle of music notes, tunes, mentally imitating hand-motions as they moved over keys, Hank came up quite a lot in her thoughts. She was passing by Xavier's office. His thoughts fanned out, picking up more snippets from the students and the X-Men alike, Peter's a swirl of color as he sketched a landscape from memory, Jean and Ororo each carefully watching each other as a chess match unfolded on the table in front of them, and he smiled when he saw how hard Jean had to scold herself not to cheat and sneak a peak into Ororo's thoughts, though they both knew all she would see was static anyway. He could also feel that all of her mind was not focused on material things anymore, at least a part of Jean's consciousness was always busy keeping tabs on the part of her that was bursting with power, the Phoenix buried in the back of her mind.

And suddenly, the void made its presence known, the utter silence of the one mind on campus Xavier had no access to at all. Julia. The Professor still could not quite describe how disconcerting it was to hear utter silence when one was so attuned to the general noise of thoughts. Like a stone sitting in the bottom of a clear river, obvious, but untouchable. Kurt's thoughts were nearby of course, but Xavier would not intrude, despite the worry that flashed across Kurt's mind. Usually the silence of Julia's mind made him a little uncomfortable, there was no denying that, but something about it this time felt...almost malicious. Xavier found himself wondering about the nightmare Julia reported having. Did it have something to do with this? If so, what? Better yet, how could he get a feeling from silence he had no way of interpreting?

Xavier shook his head slightly. He couldn't read silence of course. Not such a complete silence anyway. And he was not about to probe Kurt's mind uninvited to see what he could discern from his thoughts. He was just jumping at shadows. Kurt and Julia had a lot to plan, it made perfect sense they would both be a little stressed out, a little frustrated.

That was all it was.

* * *

Chasing her from the Danger Room had led Kurt back to his own room, within which Julia had taken shelter, curled in the bed with her back to the door.

She had been quiet for almost an hour now, and it was beginning to seriously worry him.

He had prodded at her a few times, gently, tempted her with food and her favorite vanilla flavored coffee with just the right amount of half and half, but she had so far quietly repelled all his attempts at conversation or getting her up. So he had settled for climbing into the bed with her, wrapping his arms and tail around her and pulling Julia close to his chest, letting her know he was there for her.

"Do you think Cloak was right?" She asked suddenly, the first whole sentence she had spoken since he had found her here.

"About vhat?" Gently a hand broke away from her waist to stroke her hair. He did still love it, despite his complaints. He had loved it long, loved winding it around his fingers, and braiding it when she would sit still long enough to let him, but he loved it like this too. The bedhead she got in the morning, the way it tickled his face when she leaned down to kiss him, and it still looked beautiful on her of course, still velvety and black as midnight.

"Do you think the Darkforce could be a curse?"

"I don't know _liebling. _You've never had trouble vith it before, vhy now?"

"I've also never had repetitive nightmares before." She rolled over now to look him in the eye. "This is going to sound weird, but just bear with me for a second, okay?"

"Okay..." Kurt tilted his head slightly, curious.

"In the Danger Room today, I got really, really close to seriously hurting Scott."

"But you didn't, did you? Besides, from the look of things, he vas the vone breaking everything-"

"That's not the point. The point is I don't think it was all me."

"How do you mean?" Kurt was no utterly confused.

"Don't get me wrong, it's not like I never want to punch Scott in the face, everyone knows I do. But I've never wanted to like...maim him or anything. But sometime during the fight, I think that's what I was trying to do. Only I wasn't, my body was doing it but my brain wasn't, or at least, the part of my brain that I'm in-" She stopped abruptly, looking as confused as Kurt felt. "Am I going crazy?"

"Of course not."

"You don't think it's crazy that I feel like I couldn't control what I was doing? Cloak said he can't control the Darkforce, not very well. What if the same thing is happening to me?"

"Jyulia, you're in control right now. If it vas trying to control you it's not like it vould just stop."

She debated this for a moment. "Yeah...I guess. I don't feel any different now, just during the fight."

Kurt shrugged. "The Darkforce likes energy, and Scott is a pretty good source of it from vhat I know. The energy probably just got carried avay." He could see Julia mulling this over as well, and not looking totally convinced, but she said nothing else for the time being. He decided to distract her until he had some better advice to offer her.

"How do you feel about black dahlias?"

"They remind me of gruesome murder." Silence held for a moment, and then Julia laughed. "Don't tell me, that's what you're thinking for the bouquets, huh?"

"You said you vanted black." Kurt shrugged, sharing her smile.

* * *

Something was different this time. She didn't know what. It felt like someone else was there, but that couldn't be right, could it? She knew this was a dream, it had to be the nightmare, everything was dark, cold, empty. She knew that. So why did it feel like she wasn't alone?

She turned, or, she thought that must what she did, because suddenly a figure that she was somehow able to see in the inky blackness slid into her vision. It should have startled her, would have, if she hadn't already felt it was there.

It looked like her, like looking into a mirror. Only not quite. The hair was wrong, longer, like before she had cut it, the cheek bones were too high, too sharp. She, as Julia had decided this figure was female, was too thin, bordering on emaciated. Julia opened her mouth, determined to demand just what the hell was going on her, but no words came out. Nothing. It was still silent. And then suddenly whoever this woman was was leaping at her, and something, she didn't know what, was keeping Julia rooted to whatever counted as the ground in this place. Claw like hands curled around Julia's skull, and pain ricocheted around her brain, not just pain, like she had been hit in the head, but like this woman -or whatever she was- was pulling Julia's soul out from the top of her skull.

"Jyulia!"

Kurt's shout, the utter panic in it, dragged her out of whatever crazy nightmare she had been having, and Julia found herself on the floor of the room, Kurt on top of her, literally pinning her down. She was in her dark form, claws sprouting from her fingers, and from the way Kurt's left hand was hanging at his side, she would guess he had gotten caught in whatever flailing she had been doing.

"Oh God...Kurt?"

"I'm okay. It vas just a nick." He reassured quickly, his voice calm despite the the fact he was breathing pretty heavy. What had she been _doing_? "Are you alright? You vent flying off the bed like something vas chasing you."

"I...I had the nightmare again, but...it was different." Kurt was staring at her, not judging, not questioning, just waiting for whatever else she wanted to say. "There was a woman. She looked kinda like me but she wasn't. I..." She trailed off, not sure how else to describe it, but momentarily focused on getting herself back in her human form. She wanted to feel human again, just to make sure she was really awake. She looked up at Kurt again. "What's wrong with me?"

He opened his mouth, looking as though he was going to tell her that there was nothing wrong. But then he closed his mouth and shook his head. "I don't know _liebling._"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

_Author's Note: Holy crap. I'm sorry I've been away for so long everyone. There are a few reasons, namely because of school. I am officially a college graduate. :) Very stressful. Further, I got way into my SOA story for awhile, but now have writer's block for that...anyway, lastly, I was having some issues with the plot here. There were a few different directions it could have gone, and it took awhile for me to decide on this one. Then I wanted to spread all that happened in this chapter over two or three, but decided, you know what? Suspense is hard to do. I figured you all would have read enough X-Men to guess where this was going. :) I'll explain a little more on the end, alright?_

_P.S. To LittleBlackSparrow, thank you for the idea of involving Renee, I agree that she needed a bigger part. She'll probably be involved more, she's just so endearing :) _

* * *

Kurt hadn't told anyone about what happened last night. Julia knew this the moment she appeared in the kitchen and everyone greeted her normally. His arm had been back to normal by the time morning had rolled around, but that didn't mean she felt any better about it. Or that she had been able to sleep the rest of the night. She had lain awake, trying to figure out just what in the hell was going on, why the nightmare had suddenly gotten worse. Who that person had been.

After all, if the most powerful telepath on the planet couldn't get into her head, how was someone else going to invade her dreams?

She sat in an empty chair at the table, drinking a large cup of nearly black coffee, feeling utterly inhuman from lack of sleep. She only noticed Marcy trying to get her attention when she patted Julia's shoulder lightly, the little brunette looking at Julia with wide, two-toned eyes imploringly.

"Sorry Marcy, what is it?"

"I said Scott said you're supposed to help me and Logan out in the yard. Our class has their first obstacle course today."

Obstacle courses. Julia remembered what those were like; they were sort of like a first step before the Danger Room the school used for the students who were truly getting the hang of their powers. But why would Scott want her to help? Especially after yesterday?

"Uhm...did Scott say why?"

Marcy shook her head, but Logan's voice sounded from the dining room doorway. "We thought it would be a good starting place for ya."

Julia swiveled in her chair, looking at Logan over her shoulder. He had seen what she had almost done yesterday as well, but he also seemed to be keeping it quiet. It wasn't like she would have expected Logan to turn her over to Scott, but...well, she just didn't know what to think of the situation she had found herself in. She wondered if she could ask Logan about it, get some advice. And if there would be a good time to ask him about it, she supposed it would be while the kids were out struggling their way through his boot camp.

"Sure. I guess I can help."

Once breakfast was done and they headed outside, Julia found herself promptly assaulted by a brilliant orange glow and found Renee to suddenly be practically bouncing in front of her, the girl's feet three or four inches off the ground.

"Are you going to be part of the class Julia? Can you be my partner?"

"Partner?" Julia questioned, confused, nearly blinded, and feeling her own powers stirring in the presence of Renee, who basically always seemed to be putting out about as much energy as the average dwarf star. She focused on that last part, stamping the well of her own dark energy as far down as she could get it. Which wasn't far, considering how bonded with her it was now.

"It's a pair course," Marcy explained, coming up to Julia's side, "-It's supposed to be a team building exercise too. That said, I don't think it's really fair if you get Julia as a partner Renee. She's only supposed to be helping, and-"

"And she's technically still X-Man level," Logan supplied, also joining the growing group.

Renee pouted, sinking back to the ground, though the glow hardly dimmed. "But we have an uneven number anyway. And you're not technically a teacher right? So it wouldn't really be cheating or anything." Renee turned pleading bright orange eyes to Julia again.

"Uhm..." She turned to Marcy and Logan, not sure whether she should let the official "teachers" handle this. Renee didn't seem to want to take no for an answer, and she hardly wanted to hurt the girl's feelings.

"Mr. Logan, please please please can I pair with Julia? I promise I'll go through again if you want me to."

Logan opened his mouth, clearly about to say no, but Renee fearless, little teenager that she was, stared back with the biggest eyes she could manage. Julia had to give the girl props, at Renee's age, she probably wouldn't have dared argue with Logan. Actually, at fifteen, she probably would have avoided Logan like the plague; she had tended to do that with all adults when she had been that age.

Logan's shoulders drooped slightly, obviously unable to resist Renee's charm. "Ah, to hell with it. Fine. But Jules, ya don't get any teleporting or claws, only transforming, got it? This ain't set up fer all that, it's just some basics."

"Okay, I can do that." She nodded, actually a bit relieved. After what had happened the last time she'd used her claws, she wasn't sure she was willing to use them today. She wasn't even sure she felt like transforming was going to be a good idea.

The first pair to go made it through with relatively little trouble, a pair of girls, one who could throw fire as well as Pyro, and the other who could make shields a-la Invisible Woman. Pair number two was a boy with TK, which he had so far only been able to use on electronics, and a South American girl whose ability, as far as Julia could tell, was something akin to Collosus, most of the course had been broken, and they were unscathed.

Pair number three was going now, and Julia and Renee were pair number four. Some of the kids had been a little weirded out by her presence, but one look from Logan if they got to whispering had most of them ignoring her. Except for Renee, the girl was talking Julia's ear off about everything from school, the letter she had finally gotten from her mother, the homework she had lost, the boy she had a crush on, and a million and five questions about when Julia was getting married and Renee wanting to know if she was invited. The girl was like a whole pep-squad rolled into one, and Julia found it rather relaxing to listen to her ramble about things that seemed so normal.

Pair number three emerged from around the trees, signalling they had made it to the end of the course, and Logan waved Julia and Renee along. Julia shifted forms, and almost instantly began to feel...something.

She couldn't really describe it, but after yesterday being in her dark form had started to feel somehow unhuman. Before she had never really paid much mind to the fact that her dark form technically wasn't her body, but these days she was painfully aware that it was something from an entirely different dimension. That said, only recently had it decided that it wasn't going to listen to her as well as it had used to.

Renee lifted off the ground again slightly, her glow brightening, and headed off toward the course, at about the same pace as Julia jogging behind her. It still wasn't quite flying, more like hovering or levitating, but the control Renee showed now was clearly much better than when she had first showed Julia a few weeks ago.

Barely five minutes into the course Julia -half dodging little rubber balls being shot at them, and half making sure her own powers didn't start siphoning off Renee's energy- felt a strange tingle in what was usually her spine; she wasn't sure what it was in this form. At first, she thought it was just the beginnings of a little headache from trying to divide her attention between the course and Renee, but it was steadily getting worse. She was starting to feel as though she was being split down the middle, or that her top-half was trying to pull apart from her lower-half.

She felt herself stop, but she wasn't sure why, she could hear Renee saying something to her, but she didn't seem to be processing any of the words, even when she tried to focus on Renee, trying to guess what the girl was saying to her.

_Mine. _

Julia spun on her heel, not sure how she knew where the voice was coming from, but somehow pinpointing the source with ease. The woman from her nightmare. The one who looked just enough like her to be uncanny, but obviously wasn't Julia. The woman gave a little smirk, and turned away from Julia before she could even open her mouth to demand just what the hell was going on.

Without giving it a second thought, Julia gave chase. She could catch her, bring this crazy invasive woman back to the mansion with her, and and they could get some answers. Yeah, she had to be a pretty powerful telepath or something to get into her head, but she would bet Professor Xavier was still better. Or maybe she just wanted to believe that so she didn't have to be afraid.

_Doesn't matter. I'm stopping this before it gets worse. _

Julia picked up her pace, sprinting after the mystery woman, though she seemed to have lost sight of her. She couldn't be that much faster than Julia, could she?

Something knocked Julia off her feet, something she couldn't see, even after she had hit the ground, rolling instinctively into a crouch, prepared to strike whatever it was. What felt like a hammer blow landed between Julia's shoulders, throwing her forward into the dirt. To her surprise, she tasted blood.

Coughing slightly, Julia shoved herself up on her hands, raising an arm to wipe the dirt from her mouth, stunned when it came up flesh and left her mouth with blood smeared on it. She was in her human form? But when? And how? Could she not even control when she changed forms anymore?

"Looking for me?"

Julia's head snapped up, staring into the identical grey eyes of the very woman who had been in her dreams. She surged to her feet, trying and failing to force herself back into her energy form.

"Who the hell are you? What have you been doing to my dreams?" In response, the mystery woman smirked, as though amused by the question.

"You don't know? I'm Eclipse."

Julia frowned, not the least bit amused. Though why she would say such a thing, Julia couldn't figure.

"I'm Eclipse. Just what are you trying to pull?" Julia demanded. The woman's expression shifted to one of annoyance, almost anger.

"Wrong. You're Julia. I'm Eclipse." She took a step toward Julia, who backed off an equal distance, not sure what to expect from her, and slightly uncomfortable without the ability to shift forms at the moment. She was also utterly confused by this woman. Was she aiming for that, or did this total stranger seriously believe that she somehow actually was Eclipse? Personally, if Julia was going to pretend to be someone she wasn't, she would have picked someone with a better record. 'Eclipse' was infamous for throwing a guy off a building and mysteriously vanishing from an MRD prison.

"Look, you can't be Eclipse. I'm pretty sure that's me."

"Oh? Then what about your powers?" The smirk came back, keenly satisfied now. "Where are they? Why don't you use them?"

"That's none of your business!" That, and truthfully, Julia didn't know the answers to any of those questions.

"Just like I thought," the woman calling herself Eclipse smirked again. "You can't do anything without me." Her body seemed to shimmer, an effect Julia recognized from her own transformations, and a half-second later, Julia found herself staring at a mirror image of her energy form. Too shocked to speak, she could Only stare at her twin, more confused than ever, and now with a deep sense of foreboding lurking in her stomach. She didn't know what was going to happen now, but she was almost positive now would be a good time to head back toward the mansion, where someone else could hopefully make sense of this.

Julia turned on her heel and bolted, suddenly painfully aware of how long it had been since she had run in human form and used her lungs this heavily, pushing passed some low hanging branches, only to find her imitator easily overtaking her, warping through the trees with speed that made her practically invisible. It was only Julia's energy sense, the false Eclipse leaving a vivid trail of darkness behind her, that told Julia where the other woman was.

That did not, however, make her any more prepared for the attack that came, seemingly out of nowhere, her eyes catching only the vaguest outlines of claws, curved, dangerous, and again, so similar to her own, before they slammed into her face.

The sensation was excruciating; it was what Julia imagined being stabbed with icicles felt like, the cold biting through, seemingly to her very soul. Her heart stopped, her lungs seized, and her mind went blank.

Vaguely, she felt her body hit the ground, but hadn't felt her knees buckle or give out, but the world was fading, going dark. It was beginning to look like her nightmare.

* * *

The frantic pounding on his window nearly gave Kurt a heart attack, especially considering his room was four floors above the ground. He turned to the window and found a frantic, almost tearful Renee, awkwardly suspended at a strange angle, her legs nearly above her head -she still didn't quite have flight down- desperately attempting to get his attention.

"Mr. Wagner! You have to go help Mr. Logan, Something's wrong with Julia!"

"Jyulia? Vhat's vrong vith Jyulia?"

"I don't know! She was doing the training with me, and then all of a sudden she started talking to someone but no one was there, then she started freaking out, and now I think she's trying to kill Mr. Logan!"

"Show me vhere," Kurt demanded, hoping Renee didn't take his sharp tone of voice as being directed at her. Considering the things that had been happening to Julia, he simply didn't wish to take any chances, the quicker he arrived to help his soon-to-be-wife, the sooner they could resolve whatever was happening. He hoped anyway.

A few quick teleports later, following Renee's shiny beacon of energy, Kurt arrived at a very strange scene. At first it looked like Logan and Julia were merely sparring, but upon a closer look, he observed that Logan was honestly having to defend himself; any of Julia's lightning fast attacks that he failed to block resulted in bleeding gashes, healing as quickly as ever, but with an obvious detrimental effect to his ability to move.

This was strange indeed, Julia had never been able to make her claws solid, not enough to cut flesh, nor had her energy ever been intense enough to numb Logan out, even for a moment.

Kurt had the strangest feeling he was not currently looking at the woman he loved, but someone else entirely.

"Don't stay here, go back to the mansion," Kurt told Renee, gesturing vaguely at the tree he was perched in and Renee was hovering behind. She nodded, and drifted higher into the branches presumably to head back in the other direction, while Kurt debated his next step. While his first instinct was to simply jump in and pull either Logan or Julia away by a distance of about two miles, but he had no idea what had started this, or whether that would end it. The way Julia was attacking, he wasn't sure pulling her away would do anything but give her a new target in the form of himself. That left Logan.

Kurt leaped from the tree, jaunting to Logan's side, grabbing him and taking a full two mile jump away from Julia, hoping that would buy them a moment. She was completely unpredictable right now, and Kurt would rather not take chances.

Logan slumped against a tree when their feet were safely on the ground again, rubbing at a cut on his cheek that was healing, but slowly.

"Vhat's going on here? Vhat's vrong vith Jyulia?"

"She's outta her flamin' mind, that's what!" Logan practically snarled. "One minute everything's peachy keen, and the next she's tryin' to slice the life outta Renee!" Logan spit out what appeared to be tooth, rubbing his jaw. "I don't know what the hell's going on, but she's lost it."

"Renee said she vas talking to somevone-"

"Someone only she could see." Logan spat again, this time blood free, his healing factor kicking in at full capacity now. "I couldn't get through to her at all. She looked at me like she didn't have a flamin' clue who I was."

"I'll try to talk to her-"

"Kurt you don't even know what the hell is going on with her."

"No. But vhat do expect me to do?"

"I...hell, I dunno." Logan scratched the back of his head. "My healing factor's taken care of the nerve damage by now. I'll go back with you. If nothing else I can distract her while ya try to get through to her."

"Ja. Let's go." While Kurt supposed he sounded mostly confident, but he didn't really feel like it. He remembered Jean's first outburst as Dark Phoenix, and he knew Logan would be too. He knew they all probably would when word got around. And that mess had hardly been an easy one to fix, would this be the same? As bad?

Kurt sent a little prayer up that it wouldn't come down to risking Julia's death, because she, unlike Jean, likely did not posses an ability to return to life.

Julia was no longer in the obstacle course when they returned to the spot they had left her, but a crack of thunder and lightning from the direction of the mansion heralded which way she had gone, and also that Logan wasn't the only one she had tried to harm, nor was he the only one ready to fight back. Kurt was having a seriously hard time wrapping his mind around the fact that Julia was apparently the one doing all this. Attacking friends, after so staunchly trying to prove she was ready to rejoin the X-Men? It didn't make sense, nothing Logan could do could possibly have set her off to this extreme. And even if she was having trouble controlling the shape of her claws or her powers, that didn't explain these sudden and unprovoked attacks.

Following the weather anomaly, Kurt and Logan arrived to see Ororo in the air, and an apparent black streak of lightning arcing around her, only barely being repelled by the small tornado Ororo kept tight around herself.

"Don't throw any lightning 'Ro! It's only going to keep her going longer!" Logan shouted, though Ororo was likely aware of the fact.

The black streak halted, forming into a more human shape, but with far more mass than Julia had ever had, seeming suspended in a cloud of Darkforce energy.

"You're confusing me with _her_. I don't have her limits." Without any more preamble, she launched at Logan again, giving Storm a moment of reprieve before she too joined in, hurling in more gale-force blizzard winds that seemed to do little more than irritate Julia as they pinned her to the ground. She disappeared, warping, but Kurt intercepted, knowing she would be aiming for Ororo again, grabbing Julia out of the air the moment she solidified; though he couldn't muster the will to hit her, even knowing she wouldn't feel much in this form.

Julia twisted in his arms, a wordless growl escaping her, raising claws that curved like raptor-talons, and Kurt had the horrific impression that he was about to understand what being paralyzed felt like.

"Jyulia! It's me!" He let go to raise his hands placatingly, and rather to his surprise, she did stop. Looking surprised for a moment, then frustrated, then angry.

"She's stronger than I thought, she doesn't want you hurt. Hmph. No matter." She turned, as though simply planning to walk away from him, but Kurt reached out to grab her, stunned when a blade of dark energy sprouted from her shoulder, lashing out at his hand. It would have caught him too, if not for the instincts that had him dropping to the ground on all fours. These weren't Julia's powers at all, she had never been able to do anything like that. And if it wasn't Julia, who was it that had usurped her powers this way?

She lashed out with a leg, a new blade sprouting from there as well, Kurt scrambling away before he ended up with nerve damage.

"Jyulia please! You don't know vhat you're doing!"

"She can't hear you." Whoever, or whatever, this woman was taunted. She lashed out at Kurt again, all claws and blades of darkness, forcing him to practically flatten to the ground, and then teleport away before she could land a solid hit on him. Kurt landed in a tree nearby, while Logan charged in again, his adamantium claws meeting spikes of solid Darkforce energy that looked fit to kill anything less-tough than the Wolverine.

They weren't getting anywhere like this, they needed to stop Julia, and hopefully do it without harming her. Ordinarily Kurt would hope they could just wear her out, since Julia's transformations only lasted thirty-minutes at most, but since this wasn't actually Julia -Kurt was positive of that much at least- he had no idea how long that would take. For all they knew, there might not be a limit.

* * *

Julia was beginning to think this wasn't a dream, or _the _dream as the case may be. It had started the same, still looked basically the same, but nothing had happened yet. She had been content to wait it out, sure all those crazy delusions involving that other woman were also part of this nightmare and that it would soon end and she would wake up, but now she wasn't so certain. For one thing, she felt like this dream had been going on an awfully long time, so long in fact, that her legs had gotten tired and she was now sitting on the invisible floor within the endless darkness, that was something she was positive had never happened in one of her dreams before. Any dream.

Not only that, she felt awake. Lucid, and aware -for the most part- of what was going on around her. She could feel all her limbs and digits, knew for certain she was breathing and her heart was still beating. So if it wasn't a dream, what was this place that looked exactly like the nightmare she had been having?

_The Darkforce Dimension. _The thought occurred to her spontaneously, and, considering the decor, it seemed like a pretty good bet. That would also probably be why this place hadn't eaten her alive like it apparently did to most things that wound up here; she was connected to it, it was a part of her. Now, how had she gotten here? Hank said she probably didn't have the ability to teleport, and if she could teleport, wouldn't she have ended up somewhere else back in her own dimension? At the very least, she had never seen Kurt wind up stuck in the middle of a teleport. But no, she would probably know if she had sent herself here. It was the other woman, the one who was trying to pass herself off as Eclipse. She had attacked Julia, and Julia had woken up here, so it must have been her doing. The other Eclipse must have Darkforce powers too, freakishly similar to Julia's own, albeit they were obviously much stronger.

If only that would help her get back out. Just because this place wasn't trying to absorb her didn't mean she liked it here. It vaguely occurred to her to wonder why she was handling the idea of being trapped in a realm of pure darkness as calmly as she was at the moment.

It seemed as though, for the moment at least, she was the only thing here that was solid. Everything else, the vague shapes she could almost see swirling in the darkness, were incorporeal forms of energy, if they were even actually out there. On a whim, Julia reached down into herself, attempting to pull at the Darkforce Energy within her own body, wondering if she could switch forms and get out somehow, only to find it completely unresponsive. In her own dimension, her powers worked by pulling the energy to her and letting it replace her physical body, here, she would naturally be powerless, because she was in the dimension she pulled energy from. The idea made enough sense at the moment that she left it at that, and turned her mind back towards this Eclipse woman. Just who was she and what did she want with Julia?

A little voice in the back of her head that didn't seem to be Julia's own pointed her to the fact that the other Eclipse had definitely been the one in her dreams. An almost identical twin, one that had her powers. Could get into her head when even the world's most powerful telepath couldn't.

Which basically meant one thing as far as Julia could tell. 'Eclipse' must somehow be a part of her.

* * *

This was not going as planned. Of course, there hadn't been much of a plan to start with. Fight as they might, Julia kept progressing closer and closer to the Mansion. Kurt figured he knew why, the supplies of energy there were close to boundless, Jean, Scott, Renee to name a few, all sorts of energy for her powers to feed on.

Kurt's arms and hands were starting go numb from his repeated attempts to grab Julia, to reason with her and, hopefully, bring her back from wherever this stranger had put her. Each time there was a faint glimmer of Julia, a hint of her mind returning, but each time he had been forced to retreat when the not-so-nice Julia took control again. His Julia was still in there somewhere, he just had to get to her somehow.

The other X-Men who had come to assist in the fight looked as if they too were starting to run out of ideas. This version of Julia had yet to even show a sign of losing energy, losing her hold on her energy form, and they had been doing nothing but fight her for nearly an hour.

_Kurt, I think I have an answer. _

_Professor? _

_I've found Julia. _

Kurt's brow furrowed in confusion. He knew that this person wasn't exactly Julia, but she was still mostly Julia, wasn't she? _Vhat exactly do you mean? _

_Julia has been misplaced into the Darkforce dimension. This...person, is her equivalent from that side. Somehow she's managed to take Julia's place on our side. _

_How can you be sure? _

_As I said, I found Julia. Her powers are currently separate from her physical body and therefore not blocking me; I was able to trace her mind to the edge of our world. I think I can help her find her way back, but I don't know what that will do, or if that will allow her to regain control. I'm afraid we may not have much choice otherwise, the longer her Darkforce aspect is here, the harder it will be to force her back. _

_How? How can ve get her back?_

_This version of Eclipse, she's created a hole in our dimension, according to Hank, she's pulling enough energy through it that she's corrupting our side. In this case, the link goes both ways. I should be able to send a Psionic projection to Julia, and guide her through moving back through to this side._

_Und Eclipse vill just go avay if Jyulia comes back? _

_That I'm afraid we can't know for certain. All I can do is bring Julia back. _It took Kurt only a moment to decide what course of action he would take.

_Ve'll keep her occupied a little longer. Professor...bring her back. Please. _

_I'll do the best I can. Logan, Ororo, Peter, did you catch all that? _

"Yeah, yeah, we heard ya Chuck! Now get down here and get Pete outta there before Jules absorbs him, wouldja Elf?" Logan shouted, one hand had a hold of the back of Peter's uniform, while the other was waving in Kurt's direction, Peter trying desperately to punch his way out of what looked to be solid fog of some sort, spreading from Julia's form and trying to wrap around him to strangle him.

'Porting in to Peter's rescue, Kurt only hoped Julia was as strong as he believed her to be. Putting _this _Eclipse back into her own dimension was going to be no easy feat.

* * *

_Author's Note 2: So, as you'll likely guess, I recently re-read both the Dark Phoenix Saga, and Phoenix Endsong (and there's a little Angel/Archangel from Uncanny X-Force). Heavily inspired. Hopefully though, it's different enough that you'll believe me when I try to say it's not a knock-off. As to where the second 'Eclipse' happened, I'll try to explain it in the next chapter. I also got the idea based on Darkstar's Wiki page, which says her power comes from a split-consciousness. As I said, I'll try to explain more of this in the next chapter. Have faith in me please! :)_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_Hey guys, sorry for the delay. I've just been kinda...sidetracked. Mostly because I recently played Dragon Age 2, and my brain has been blowing up with some Hawke/Fenris Love. Yeah man. Anyway, here's the new bit. Thanks to people reviewing, again, I have a hard time writing when I don't get feedback. :) _

* * *

She had begun wandering through the darkness, not entirely sure why, other than the fact she was starting to feel restless. Besides, sitting around was obviously going to get her nowhere, if she wanted out of here, she was going to have to take action and find a way. Of course, finding anything within a realm of nothing but solid black for scenery was going to be difficult.

Walking through the place felt like swimming in ice water, strange that it hadn't felt that way before. It seemed like the longer she was here, the more she felt the coldness pressing down on her, and the less she was able tell whether she was moving in a straight line or simply wandering in circles.

A glimmer of light appearing from the solid darkness nearly blinded Julia, startled, and unsure if what to expect in this dimension, Julia nearly leaped away, knowing she couldn't very well hide, and so prepared to fight.

_It's alright Julia. It's only me. _The glimmer changed, taking on a vaguely human shape, before finally becoming the recognizable form of Professor Xavier. Or rather, a glowing, blue ghost version of him.

"Professor? How did you get here? And why do you look...ghosty?"

_Astral projection. Luckily for us it works across dimensions, although coming here is a first for me._

"But this place will absorb you or-"

_I'm not actually in this place_. The Professor said, or thought, a small smile creasing his ghost face. _I projected directly into your mind, the image is simply for your benefit. It will be much easier to lead you if you can see what direction I'm pointing you in._

"I thought you couldn't get into my mind?" Julia questioned, even as she began to follow the image of Xavier which floated along in front of her. He was going the opposite direction she had been wandering, so she was doubly grateful for the guidance. Who knew where she would have gone.

_I suspect that the 'Eclipse' woman who is now in your place has been the one blocking me. I have no access to her mind, but I was able to detect yours._

"Eclipse...Professor, do you think I maybe...created her? Like a split-personality?"

_It's a possibility. _Professor Xavier nodded. _More likely, she's a part of you that has been corrupted. A part of your mind that isn't able to separate from the Darkforce completely. _

"So...what do you think she wants?"

_The same thing anything from this particular dimension wants. 'Eclipse' wishes to consume anything and everything light- and heat-based. Unfortunately, in our dimension that means essentially everything._

Julia looked at her feet, traveling along the invisible floor. Truthfully, it was so dark here that she couldn't even see the length of her legs to her feet; it was rather unnerving, even if it had been perfectly flat so far. If Eclipse was a 'corrupted' part of her mind that was infected by the Darkforce, what was to stop that infection from spreading, and all this happening again?

_We're going to throw her back into this dimension and lock the door on her. She can't do anything to you if we separate you. _The Professor said from up ahead causing Julia to jolt slightly. It had been a long, long time since anyone had been able to hear her thoughts, it was still a bit of a novel experience for her.

"She's the reason I've been losing control lately. And probably why I've been having nightmares."

_Your subconscious trying to fight her off and stay in control. _The Professor suggested, before hovering to a halt in front of what appeared to be a large, ornate door, that had more or less come out of nowhere. It looked more like an old-fashioned wrought iron gate, but without the spaces in between. _Recognize this Julia? _

"Not really, but I'm going to guess it's my door into the Darkforce dimension." Julia set her hands on her hips, and tilted her head to the side to better examine it. The gate was as black as everything else in the dimension, but somehow she could see it perfectly. One of the many things about this day that had just stopped making sense at some point. _Who knew my subconscious still loved Nightmare Before Christmas so much. _

_It's also the source of your powers. _The Professor's projection moved toward the gate, examining it more closely, and now Julia could see the bent metal, pieces missing in some places. _She must have warped it when she broke through to our side. _

"Or maybe I'm just not so good at keeping my dark side where she should be," Julia quipped, causing the Professor to look back at her sharply. "Hey, you do remember the part where I have more murder raps than half the team combined, right? If she's always been here, we've been getting acquainted for a long time."

_And perhaps that's why she was able to take over in the first place. _

"Can we maybe not have this discussion right now? How about we work on getting this fixed or whatever, and getting Eclipse back over here." She couldn't help the defensive tone of voice, but what could she say? It wasn't like she didn't feel guilty about it, but she also still didn't feel like it merited an apology. She had killed to prevent any more children from being experimented on and killed, it made sense to her.

_Alright. Later. _The Professor agreed, and his tone said that he wouldn't forget that. _Otherwise you will only open the door to her again. _

Julia stepped toward the gate, resting her hand on it slightly, unsure of how exactly she could repair it. She felt the connection to it, felt that it was a part of her, and felt the break. And the memories. Despair from when Kurt was shot, the pain of the bomb, fear of the men who had grabbed her in New York, the cause of her first transformation, the fury and hate she felt for the Purifiers. That was how Eclipse had broken the gate. Every negative emotion Julia had felt fed her a little more power, and a little more of her had slipped passed the gate. But the MRD's cell, that's what had really done it. It was what had broken the connection between Julia and her powers, given Eclipse the chance to evolve from a part of Julia to whole. Julia had been separated from the gate, her subconscious forced away by the MRD blocking her power; and in her absence, Eclipse had been busy breaking down this gate. Only recently had she shattered it, and thrown Julia through it, confident she would never find her way back from the Darkforce dimension. Her body had always come to the Darkforce dimension, her transformations literally a transportation of her physical self here and her energy form to her dimension, but this time, Eclipse had thrown her mind through with it.

"How do I fix it?" Julia asked, looking up to the Professor.

_Not physically. You have to will it back, separate yourself from this dimension again. _

"Won't that be kind of hard since I'm standing in it?"

_I believe you're stubborn enough to succeed. _Professor Xavier smiled slightly at her. _When you've rebuilt the gate, you have to draw Eclipse back to you. _

"And then try to leave without her?"

_Precisely. _

"Well, wish me luck I guess."

_Just remember Kurt is on the other side of the door. _

"Heh. You sure know how to motivate a girl Professor."

Julia pressed both hands on the gate now, letting the broken feeling of it sink in. She focused on making a wall, visualizing it really, as clearly as she could. The Darkforce on one side, and herself on the other. It resisted her, somehow, the broken pieces not wanting to fit back together, but she forced them.

How she was doing it she wasn't sure, it wasn't as if she had ever practiced building a mental wall before. Maybe it was because her subconscious had spent so much time maintaining it; an instinct she didn't know she had. It was starting to come together, she could both see it and feel it, the gate's shape was returning, the broken pieces fading and being replaced by new, stronger pieces. And for the first time since she had gotten to the Darkforce Dimension, she found herself able to feel her own powers, the connection had returned, as had her control over it. At least, she felt like it had.

One piece was still missing though. The piece Eclipse had, the part of her that was separate, the part of her running rampant on the other side of the gate. But now Julia could feel the connection to her, and she pulled with all her might, again, it wasn't a physical pull, something more internal than that.

Eclipse fought, she had as much power over the connection as Julia, and she was trying to close the gate from her side. Julia pulled harder, she was stronger, she had to be. Eclipse may have all her powers, but those powers had been hers originally, Eclipse had warped them, made them stronger yes, but not without consequences. She firmed her grip on the struggling powers, Eclipse's mind trying to pull away from her own, and Julia wrenched, tore Eclipse free of whatever had been anchoring her on the other side, pulled her powers back to her, regaining control at long last.

Of her powers at least, the Eclipse manifestation was a another matter. Julia's twin tumbled through the gate, head over heels, shoving herself off the invisible floor and staring around with a look of utter venom. She was on her feet in seconds, and she had returned to the way she had looked in Julia's dream; an angry, emaciated version of herself, long hair still intact and haunted eyes. She lunged at the Professor's astral projection, which floated deftly out of the way, and Eclipse let out a feral scream that had Julia wincing. Just like Julia, Eclipse had no powers here, and she was only just now realizing it.

The Professor out of reach, Eclipse turned on Julia, still lingering near the gate, fixing the final break.

"No! You're not locking me in here again!" Those claw-like fingers were coming at Julia's face again, Eclipse's weight taking her to the floor. In the dream the claws had hurt Julia, felt like they were tearing her soul out, probably because Eclipse had been attacking her directly in the mind, but here, in this dimension, they were on the same plane. Julia shoved her off, throwing a punch with all her strength into Eclipse's jaw, and decided not to think of what sort of repercussions punching a part of her self would imply.

_Julia, the gate! You have to finish the gate!_

"I hear you Professor, I'm just-" Eclipse punched back, the blow staggering Julia, and she kicked back instinctively. It succeeded in throwing the apparition of herself a decent distance away, and Julia sprinted to the gate, slamming her hands back on the mental projection, ignoring another piercing shriek from Eclipse and focusing on pulling the last few pieces of the broken gate back together.

"No!" Eclipse tore at Julia's face from behind, though her claws or nails, whatever they were, didn't seem to actually be doing anything to Julia's skin. The last piece clicked into place, Julia knew it almost before she felt it, and then what felt like a rope around her midsection yanked her forward with a massive jerk. She felt Eclipse clawing desperately after her, but the blows were beginning to feel wispy, almost ethereal, and then suddenly Julia felt solid earth under her back, and sun made it impossible to see after being in a dimension of pure darkness for so long.

_I guess that means I win._

* * *

For the X-Men on the other side of the gate, everything that had happened with the Darkforce had taken place in a matter of seconds. One moment Julia was still trying to tear through them, and then suddenly she had frozen in place, her face going totally blank, and just as suddenly her energy form had faded to her flesh one, and she had crumpled to the dirt.

For Kurt, protective instincts had taken over, putting him at her side and gathering her up in his arms long before anyone else had even adjusted to no longer being attacked. She was shaking, her skin cold, almost like she was in shock or as if she had just stumbled in from a blizzard.

"Jyulia?" He touched her face, not sure if this was her or someone else still, but her only response was an almost violent shudder, curling towards him. Storm descended nearby, not looking entirely convinced that Julia had stopped fighting so abruptly.

"Is she...herself?"

"I don't know." Kurt shook his head. "I think so..."

_She found her way back. _The Professor's telepathic voice put in. _Whether that means Eclipse is no longer present isn't something I can say for certain. Regardless, she will likely need medical attention, being in the Darkforce Dimension as long as she was can be quite...traumatic. _

_Vill she be alright? _Kurt thought back.

_That...is another thing I can't say for certain. Not yet. Hank is ready for her, if you'd like to bring her the medical bay._

* * *

Julia awoke with a groan. Light was still painful, and there seemed to be way too much of it in the room with her.

"I don't suppose someone wants to pull the blinds?" She questioned, and her voice sounded horribly dry.

"Oops, sorry. Hang on." The light dimmed, and Julia sat up slowly, not realizing how sore she was until she tried to move, observing that Renee was in the chair nearby, and that she had wrapped herself in a spare sheet so that only her eyes poked out. "I forget I'm bright." She said apologetically.

"No, no, it's fine." Julia glanced around the infirmary, holding a hand against her aching head. Her whole body felt like she had been in a fight with Colossus on a bad day. "I..."she glanced at Renee again, who was watching her silently. "Did she... I hurt anyone?"

Renee shook her head almost violently. "No, of course not- well, I mean, you tried. A lot. But you came back before you actually hurt anyone."

"Oh. Shit. I'm sorry you had to see all that Renee." Julia's fingers tangled in her hair, seemingly of their own will, and she was suddenly grateful it as too short to actually put tangles in it now.

"What uhm...what happened, exactly?"

"A really, really nasty part of my personality that I didn't know had a mind of her own decided she wanted to be in charge." Julia shook her head slightly.

"I don't think I get it." Renee gave her own negative shake.

"I'm not really sure I do either." And Julia sincerely wished she had a better answer to give her; Renee had been nothing short of her biggest fan since Julia had come back to the X-Men, and the constant support would be something she would be eternally grateful for. She just hoped Renee could eventually forgive her for proving herself to be everything Scott had accused her of; violent, angry, and out of control.

The young girl looked down at her hands, the glow still visible through the sheet. "I should probably go get Mr. Wagner," she said after a long pause. "He only let me into the infirmary because I promised to tell him as soon as you woke up. He wanted to stay, but the Professor made him go get some food."

Renee stood from the chair and left the room before Julia could tell her she was still wearing a sheet.

Barely a minute later, a puff of smoke and small boom announced Kurt's arrival, and he appeared hunched at the end of the bed, toes and tail wrapped around the footboard. For a long moment, he said nothing, silently observing her, and Julia, unsure of what to say to explain herself, followed his lead. A smile curved his lips.

"You're back."

"You sure?"

"Ja. Absolutely." He nodded sagely, apparently totally convinced he was right.

"How can you be sure?"

Another smile, and Kurt shrugged. "I know my Jyulia." He moved onto the actual mattress, close enough to kiss her lightly. "Are you alright othervise?"

"I guess. I kinda feel like I've got the world's worst hangover or something though."

Kurt's expression stayed neutral, and his hands lingered at the sides of her face, his thumbs stroking her cheeks with a tender touch. "Do you know vhat happened?"

"Maybe. I got some of her memories -the other me- when I was in the Darkforce Dimension. They've filled in a couple blanks at least."

"And the...vhat ever she vas...is gone?"

Julia shook her head. "No. It's...more complicated then that. She's not even really someone else. She's what I...could have been."

"Vhat do you mean?" Kurt was obviously confused.

"Like I said, her memories...when I got my powers, my mind...split. Half of me became a Darkforce entity, and the other half stayed me. That connection is what gave me powers, the ability to transform, She's always been there, and she always will be, she's a part of me Kurt, even when I'm in control."

"Alvays? Then does that mean...vhen you killed those people-"

"No. I can't blame her, I wanted to kill them, not her. I told you, it's more complicated than her being my bad side and me the good. It's never completely one or the other, it's always both. But when the MRD separated us...I...something changed."

"Oh..." Was all Kurt said for a long moment, and before anything else could be said, the door opened and the Professor entered, closely followed by Scott.

"How are you Julia?" The question was phrased somewhat hesitantly.

"Me, again. Mostly. But she's...not gone."

"What exactly was she?" This came from Scott.

"It's difficult to explain. It's not like Jean and the Phoenix force, it's like...she's like me, but if I was always angry."

"So you're like the Hulk?" She thought she may have detected a hint of a sneer in Scott's voice.

"Yes and no. I don't have to worry about her taking over every time I get mad or anything. She's not even really a different personality. She's a me, from a different...place. That's its own thing but also in my head. And I know that doesn't make sense, but...but can't explain it any better." She looked at Scott and the Professor and merely shrugged, truly unable to say anything more.

"Believe it or not, I think I've heard weirder a time or two." Julia looked at Scott dubiously. He gave her a shrug of his own. "Ever heard of a place called the Omniverse? Lets just say it makes it a lot easier to question reality."

Julia looked at her hands, and Kurt's, reaching into her field of vision to wrap around hers securely. "What happens now?" She asked, looking up at Kurt -who smiled reassuringly- though the question was directed more at Scott and the Professor.

"For now, we'll wait for you to recover," Xavier said simply, as though she was merely having a bout of the flu rather than a severe identity crisis. "I'm fairly certain Eclipse will remain trapped on her side of the barrier, but there's no sense in trying to probe at her and aggravate her before you've recovered strength to fight her off. Just rest Julia."

"I...sure, whatever you say Professor." Julia nodded, turning to face him, and gave a weak attempt at a smile. She got the feeling nightmares might still be a problem, even if they weren't side effects of Eclipse trying to displace her, that honestly wasn't something she expected to go away. Truth be told, she wasn't sure what kind of lasting effects anything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours would have. One thing she did know: Kurt's hand was warm over hers, comforting, loving, sturdy. A silent promise to be there, even now, through this. She wanted so desperately to curl up in his arms and pretend not to exist for a few hours that it was almost sad.

Scott and the Professor left, through Scott paused in the doorway, giving her a last glance.

"Good to have you back," He said simply, closing the door behind him.

Without so much as a question, Kurt settled into the mattress next to her, wrapping Julia in his arms and holding her. For the first time in a long time, Julia felt like herself again. Because if there was one thing about herself that she never doubted, it was how much she loved him. As long as that never changed, she would always have an anchor.


End file.
